Barbara Mayden began her legal career with King & Spalding in Atlanta in 1976, and practiced for over 30 years, most recently at Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville, as a member of its Corporate and Securities Group. Prior to moving to Nashville in 1995, she practiced transactional business law in New York, most recently at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and prior to that, at White & Case.

Barbara has been active in the American Bar Association for over 40 years. She has served two terms on the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors, her first term, representing the State of New York, and serving on the Board’s Executive Committee and as Chair of the Board’s Operations Committee, and a second term, this time elected as a representative of the ABA’s sections. Barbara has been a member of the ABA House of Delegates for over 30 years in various representative capacities, currently serving as a representative from the Section of Business Law. Among other ABA activities, Barbara has served as Chairperson of the Young Lawyers Division and as a charter member of the Commission on Women in the Profession as well as the Commission on Opportunities for Minorities in the Profession, and chaired or co-chaired the appointments process for six ABA Presidents. Barbara has been a long-time officer of the Business Law Section, serving, among other things, as Chair of the Section and as Editor of The Business Lawyer. In addition to her ABA involvement, Barbara is an active member of the Tennessee Bar Association, a member of the American Law Institute and has been elected a Fellow of the American, New York State, Tennessee and Nashville Bar Foundations. Barbara has served as a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Georgia School of Law and chaired the Bond Attorneys’ Workshop. She is an active community volunteer, and a frequent speaker at law schools on topics of professional concern.

Barbara’s reach in the profession is reflected by being awarded the Business Law Section’s “Glass Cutter Award,” awarded annually to a woman who has cut through barriers to attain high accomplishment in business law, and by the Tennessee Bar Association which recognized Barbara’s contributions to the profession by sponsoring a reception in her honor at a Midyear Meeting of the American Bar Association. In addition, Barbara’s story is included in the Women Trailblazers in the Law Project, which is a compilation of oral histories of women who have made important contributions to the law and to women in the profession. The WTP collection is housed at three repositories: the Library of Congress, The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard, and the Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford.